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William Baker seal. Plain ring: nothing here sets a rib count, a spine length or a growth form the ring can mark.

Other Trichocereus

William Baker

Well documented

Also written as Bill Baker

William Baker is a thick, hardy named after the Californian botanist and nurseryman whose collection it came from, and collected for him in Bolivia by Julio Cruz. Growers identify it as a huanucoensis and rate it for sheer toughness: it keeps growing through winter and can push a before a has rooted. Its pedigree is shared with other clones carrying the Baker name, including a numbered 5452.Reported, but not confirmed.

  • thick stems
  • winter grower
  • strong pupper
  • huanucoensis type

Other TrichocereusNamed clone: One original plant and every cutting taken from it, given a name by a grower.

Of the 13 things this page says, 4 name who reports them and 9 are marked as something we cannot confirm. Where a line is not settled, it says so underneath.

Added 23 Aug 2026

At a glance

Species

Not recorded

No botanical name on file. What the sources do say about its species is in the writing below.

Filed under Other Trichocereus

Parents

Not recorded

No source names a mother or a father for this one.

Origin

The clone goes back to Bill Baker (1959-2009), a botanist and nurseryman whose nursery was in Reseda, California.

no source says whether it is seed-grown or a cutting line

In the yard

Not in the yardAsk if you are after one

Family line

what the record holds

No source in this library records a cross for William Baker. Nobody names a mother or a father for it, and no other entry here names it as a parent.

That is the record, not an oversight: of the 749 names in this library, 693 have no recorded relation either. Most named clones were selected, cut and passed along without anyone writing down what they came out of. A parent goes in here when a source states it and never because a name looks like one — a wrong pedigree would travel further than a blank one, because pedigrees get copied.

If you know where it came from, tell us — a person reads everything before it appears.

The longer version

Species, as our sources record it: widely identified as a huanucoensis .Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

Julio Cruz collected the plant for Baker in Murillo, Bolivia, recorded in the collection notes as Murrillo, Jayuri province.Reported, but not confirmed.

It shares that pedigree with other Baker clones, including the bridgesii known as BAKER5452.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.

A Californian nursery selling a plant out of this collection names the same collector working for the same man in Bolivia, and gives a locality and a date.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.The wiki page exists partly to keep the several Bakers in this hobby apart, so an outside record of who collected for whom is worth having.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.

Where the name comes from

The clone goes back to Bill Baker (1959-2009), a botanist and nurseryman whose nursery was in Reseda, California.Reported, but not confirmed.

Character

A bar is drawn only where one of the lines below states it — never from the species, never from a photograph.

  • slow and steady to fast grower: this one leans towards fast grower, read from the growth line below.

  • Not documented yet.

  • Not documented yet.

Growth habit
Thick-stemmed, sturdy and vigorous, and reported to keep growing right through the cold months.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Thick, vigorous stems are common, and some clones do keep creeping along in mild cool-season conditions.It pups strongly, sometimes pushing an offset before a cutting has even rooted.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Cuttings often push offsets from stored reserves before roots form; nothing odd there.

What the sources say

The wiki page exists partly to clear up confusion between different people named Baker in the cactus community. The species identification is community consensus rather than a formal determination. The wiki page is bot-compiled and unverified.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.Huanucoensis is a name growers use that the botanical record has never settled: no Trichocereus or name uses that in the standing index at all. So calling a plant a huanucoensis places it in the hobby's vocabulary without identifying it the way a published species name would.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.

Drawing of two plain Trichocereus columns of different heights, standing for the wider genus rather than one plant.
A Trichocereus column, drawn. We don't grow this one, and we will not borrow anybody else's photograph of it.

Filed under the same family, Other Trichocereus. The better-documented ones come first.

Keep exploring

Cultivar histories in this hobby are passed between growers; where sources disagree we say so rather than pick a side.